Welcome to the ‘Take This Job and Shove It’ Economy

<p>This is a strange moment in the economy. Wages are up, but so is inflation. Jobs are growing, but maybe not fast enough. Quit rates are at a 21st-century high. It isn’t clear what’s a trend, what’s a blip, what’s a transition and what’s now normal. And all this as the virus continues to stalk us and we process the trauma of the last 18 months.</p><p>“We all will have various times in our life where we’ll stop and say, ‘Whoa — am I going in the right direction? Is this the right occupation for me? Should I do something differently?’” says Betsey Stevenson. “But I can’t think of any other time when it’s been a correlated shock across the entire country, where we’ve all been faced — no, forced — to ask questions.”</p><p>Stevenson is an economist, and a highly accomplished one at that. She served as the chief economist of Barack Obama’s Department of Labor and later a member of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. Now she’s a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, as well as co-host of the podcast “Think Like an Economist.” She has a rare talent to blend a rigorous approach to labor market economics with a recognition that people — our psychologies and fears and dreams — matter, and they shape our economic decisions. Particularly now.</p><p>So I invited Stevenson on the show to discuss the big picture of what’s happening right now in the U.S. economy — wages, employment, inflation and the animal spirits driving much of it. She didn’t disappoint. I came away from this conversation far less confused than when I walked into it.</p><p>Mentioned in this episode: </p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/opinion/jobs-report-us-unemployment.html">“The Jobs Report Takeaway: A Huge Reallocation of People and Work Is Underway”</a> by Betsey Stevenson </p><p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/06/03/examining-the-uneven-and-hard-to-predict-labor-market-recovery/">“Examining the uneven and hard-to-predict labor market recovery”</a> by Lauren Bauer, Arindrajit Dube,